Smile While is an interactive work about silliness and feelings. The screen will recognize a viewer’s face and react when it sees people smiling. While left alone, the screen acts calm, but when people are around, it starts a party. Jelly-like items are bandied around, piling up and overwhelming screen space until awkward collisions glitch apart and explode. Smile While is something like a mood machine, reacting to how those react to it.
Matthew Keff is an American artist creating audiovisuals that take form in motion, interactivity and installations. Thinking about digital life and feelings, these works squish together sugary aesthetics found in network and videogame culture. Matthew has been commissioned by major film and music festivals and has shown in exhibitions internationally including Creative Code Festival, New York, US; Supernova Digital Animation Festival, Denver, US; Magdalen Art Space, Oxford, UK; The Center Del Carme, Valencia, US; Now Play This, Somerset House, UK; 4Culture, Seattle, US; Chromatic Festival, Montréal, CA; Abrons Arts Center, Manhattan, NY, US; HereART, Manhattan, New York, US; Tokyo Game Show, Tokyo, JP.
